Finding Neemo: Nasa goes from the bottom of the ocean to outer space | Andrea Boyd

Nasa astronauts-aquanauts have made a temporary underwater home to prepare for future missions. An Aussie space engineer is part of the team

On Sunday a group of six astronauts, engineers and scientists submerged 19 metres to the bottom of an Atlantic Ocean reef to live underwater for Nasa's extreme environment mission operations (Neemo) expedition.

Living underwater has very similar dangers and parallels to living in a spacecraft: closed-loop life support, pressurised habitat with incredibly efficient recycling systems, near weightless extra vehicular activities (EVAs, AKA spacewalks), a packed daily schedule, communications with mission control, the inability to return to Earth safely without a special vehicle and sufficient re-entry time to protect the crew and keep them alive. Each time they go outside, the habitat crew have to don full suits with personal oxygen tanks just like a spacewalk.